If you managed to read that title without falling into the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” trap, congratulations. You aren’t a child of the ’80s. “Tosh.0″ finally got around to giving Joey, the kid who drove his father’s brand-new Ford Mustang GT500 through the back wall of the family garage, a Web Redemption. As it turns out, the story was far worse than anyone imagined. The GT500 didn’t even belong to the family when the gung-ho teen sent it careening through the carpentry. Instead, the local dealer had simply brought the car by to show Joey’s father.

Joey’s dad wound up buying the Eleanor Edition Shelby for $60,000 and immediately had to sink another $30,000 into repairs. It’s unclear whether that figure covered the bathroom Joey also took out in the crash. Ouch.

Daniel Tosh gave Joey his Web Redemption by putting him through a uniquely Californian driving test and pitting him against a too-fast, too-furious Honda S2000 in a unique street race. Hit the jump to check out the interview as well as an expanded and “uncensored” version. In reality, both videos are clearly Not Safe For Work.

Ford is launching a new commercial for the redesigned 2013 Mustang that will initially air during the Daytona 500 this weekend. This is the first time that the Blue Oval has promoted its pony car on television since it launched the new 2011 Mustang V6 in 2010.

Conventional marketing wisdom might dictate that Ford would use the airtime to promote the 2013 Mustang’s revised design, the 420-horsepower V8 or the pony car’s history of nearly half a decade. Instead, Ford is touting the personalization aspect of the Mustang, counting on the fact that more than four million people have already built their own version using the online Mustang customizer.

The commercial depicts a real-life version of the customizer, with a variety of bystanders “unleashing their inner Mustang,” turning the car into a custom Mustang GT, Boss 302 or Shelby GT500… and at least one tiny dancer injecting a little darkness into her ballerina outfit for a ride worthy of Natalie Portman.

Have a look at the 2013 Mustang commercial for yourself after the jump, and let us know whether you think it’s the most effective use of Ford’s ad dollars in the comments section below.

There seems to be no end in sight for the rapidly expanding Lotus Racing program. In the past couple of years, the team has branched into Formula One, Indy, GP2, GP3 and a number of GT racing series around the world. Thing is - while IndyCar runs primarily in the United States and F1 is coming here too - none of those endurance championships in which Lotus has been competing have been American. That is, until now.

Teaming up wit Alex Job Racing, Lotus is supporting a factory-backed entry win the GT class of the American Le Mans Series. Together, AJR and Lotus will field a 2012 Lotus Evora GTE running the same black-and-gold livery that has proliferated across the automaker’s entire motorsport division.

AJR has a whopping 39 ALMS race wins and three GT titles to its credit, and will put IndyCar driver Townsend Bell and two-time ALMS Founders Cup winner Bill Sweedler behind the wheel for the full season that will kick off at Long Beach on April 14. Follow the jump for the full press release.

The paradigm has shifted. Normally an automaker’s range-topper gets the latest and greatest technology, but with the introduction of the all-new A-Class, Mercedes-Benz is flipping that order on its head.

At next month’s Geneva Motor Show, Mercedes will show off the next A-Class and with it, its updated COMAND infotainment system. The user interface has undergone a complete overhaul, ditching the black and beige color scheme for a sharp, modern, three-dimensional design and a range of new features and functions, nearly all of which are centered on the iPhone 4S.

The new Digital DriveStyle app allows drivers to stream AUPEO! radio (Europe’s equivalent to Pandora), connect with Facebook and Twitter to read out status updates, find your car in a crowded parking lot and get real-time traffic data and point-of-interest searches through a new Garmin navigation system. All of which is available with the entry-level “Audio 20″ setup.

More intriguingly, Mercedes is the first automaker to support and integrate Apple’s Siri voice-recognition technology, allowing users to make appointments, send text messages and emails, get weather status and access all their songs through voice commands.

While all these features will be limited to the Euro-only A-Class at first, Mercedes says that the iPhone-integrated COMAND Online suite of services will be coming to the B-, C- and E-Class models this fall. Hit the jump for the full details.

The 2008 economic collapse in the U.S. led to what many experts call the worst recession since the Great Depression. Among the many casualties of the recession was the U.S. auto industry, which (arguably) was saved thanks to $25 billion in cash from the Bush Administration in 2008 and another $60 billion from the Obama Administration in 2009.

The Detroit News reports that 51 percent of Americans opposed the bailouts, with more Republicans being against the moves than Democrats. We’re guessing far more Michigan residents were in favor of government intervention than the U.S. at large, and the Obama Administration is looking to capitalize on the move with a pro-bailout commercial.

The ad, which can be viewed after the jump, will run in Michigan throughout the weekend. The ad is hitting the airwaves as Michigan voters prepare to vote in the state’s Republican primary. Every serious Republican candidate is on the record as opposing the bailout.

Though many may not realize the extent of it, the auto business has been booming in China for a while now. General Motors actually sells more vehicles there than they do in the States, and huge market growth in China has been crucial to the bottom lines of all the carmakers that do business there. But according to Fortune, these boon times may be coming to an end.

LMC Automotive predicts that the 2012 vehicle market in China will only be growing at a 9.2-percent rate, less than half of last year’s rate, according to the report. Perhaps more chilling is that the Chinese government wants to keep foreign automakers from expanding, in an effort to shield it’s own domestic industry. While GM and Ford are already established in China, Chrysler - which does not build cars in the country yet - might be shut out given the new policies, Fortune says.

Then there’s the possibility of an economic crisis in China, fueled by a combination of rapid middle class income growth and the expansion of state-owned companies, which some analysts say could happen in just three years. No matter how you look at it, the gold rush in China is likely coming to its inevitable end.

While we wait for the unveiling of the 2013 SRT Viper, the inevitable speculation over what it’s going to look like continues. In broad terms, we already know what we’re going to get in the third generation of Chrysler’s flagship sports car. We’ve seen enough teases, blurry Hot Wheels photos and spy shots to know that the final product is going to look like, well, a Viper - long hood, wide stance, massive grille, big wheels.

Ah, but the details. The big questions concerning what’s under the hood and performance specs and such won’t truly be answered until Chrysler actually rolls out some real cars. But perhaps more importantly, we do have a good sense of the Viper’s new face. Its triangular headlights and triple hood scoops look to raise the aggro level, and those features have been nicely illustrated by one of our readers.

Spen Oner created the rendering you see above, using that Hot Wheels image as its basis. As we noted in our original post about the Hot Wheels car, the wheels are a bit over-sized, and the angle of the shot only accentuates that. We also know that there will be something other than gaping black space in the grille area, as we’ve seen a stylized version of Dodge’s crosshair grille in the shots of what we think are production molds for the hood and front end.

Thanks to Spen Oner and stay tuned for more news. We promise we’ll do our best to make you sick of the Viper before it’s even released!

It’s been a long while since the guys at Motor Trend went through the trouble of picking the best driver’s car, and for good reason. In order to pull off an actual test with any merit, the publication would need to wrangle some of the most impressive pieces of automotive engineering together on the same track on the same day. When we’re talking about vehicles like the Lexus LFA, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, Lotus Evora, Ferrari 458 Italia and the like, that can be a daunting feat, even for a rag of MT’s swagger.

Tesla and the company’s lawyers are nothing if not determined. After a judge smacked down the electric vehicle manufacturer’s libel suit against the BBC and Top Gear for comments made about the range of the Tesla Roadster, the automaker rallied with a second, amended lawsuit. It didn’t take long for the the same judge to nix the new case, too, saying the amendment was “not capable of being defamatory at all, or, if it is, it is not capable of being a sufficiently serious defamatory meaning to constitute a real and substantial tort.”

That sound? It’s the smack of the judicial backhand.

The judge went on to say drivers know a manufacturer’s claim about range is dependent on driving conditions and habits.

The dustup, as you may recall, began when Top Gear put the Tesla Roadster through its paces on the show’s test track. While Jeremy Clarkson lauded the car’s acceleration, the segment claimed the vehicle ran out of juice after just 55 miles of abuse. That figure is far south of the 200 mile range Tesla claims for the vehicle. CEO Elon Musk called the show “completely phony” not long after the segment aired and brought out the legal guns. The rest, as they say, is history.

Honda has unveiled a prototype version of the upcoming European CR-V ahead of the model’s debut at this year’s Geneva Motor Show. As with most prototypes from Honda, the vehicle is a thinly veiled version of the production CUV set to hit dealerships later this year. If the 2012 CR-V looks familiar, it certainly should. At first glance, the tall-riding five door looks to be a carbon-copy of the U.S. market vehicle. Peer a bit closer, however, and you’re likely to notice the Euro prototype wears a grille with a slightly different finish compared to its American cousin.

Our eyes also spot a mildly tweaked lower front fascia with different fog lamp openings and different - dare we say more attractive - headlights to match. Honda isn’t saying much about what sort of drivetrain options European buyers will be able to enjoy once the 2012 CR-V lands. Odds are we’ll have to wait until the official debut next month. In the meantime, hit the jump for the brief press release and check it out in the gallery.